Gallery EM is pleased to present 24 & 36 Grays, a solo exhibition by MeeNa Park, from July 29 to August 29. This is the artist’s second solo show with Gallery EM, having held her first show titled AZ in 2011. The present exhibition will feature new works from her representative series Dingbat paintings and Coloring drawings, in which Park has expanded the field of painting through the collection and reconfiguration of iconography and colors.
The large tryptic painting, entitled djswpsrkdjeldptjandjtdmfdjEjgrpdjEjgksdldbfh, is a part of the artist’s “Dingbat” series begun in 1999. In this series, the artist has used the pictographic Dingbat font to type in letters, whether existing or meaningless, to create signs and symbols which are then rearranged into new diagrams. The new work is composed of diagrams painted in 36 colors produced by mixing six chromatic colors or more, excluding white and black. The same set of 36 colors are also applied in Park’s “Coloring Drawings,” in which the artist has colored in the designs found in various children’s coloring books she has collected; notably, however, leaving untouched only the star images in these found designs.
Park investigates the relationship between subject, form and color by following her own rules and disregarding the existing instructional system that underlies the coloring books, which are typically used to teach children the basic elements of a picture as well as commonly held cultural symbols and socially acceptable ideas. In her previous work, the artist has posed questions about a society of mass production and consumption through the use of uniform, repetitive patterns made using various paints, pens and colored pencils produced by different manufacturers. 24 Grey Drawings in the current exhibition were created using 24 Graphitint colored pencils from Derwent. In these drawings, pages from children’s coloring books are filled in with horizontal lines, except for the various figures of the moon. Starting with questions about commonly held conceptions on basic colors, these drawings make use of “original” colors posited by these manufacturers to examine ideas of the readymade in colors and the universality of manufactured things.
The works in this exhibition show a convergence of concerns behind the artist’s two representative series of works, the “Dingbat Paintings” and the “Coloring Drawings.” Continuing her examination into the essence of painting and exploration into ways to expand the field of painting beyond traditional representational modes, she has turned language into signs and integrated colors into those signs, thus revealing a realm that could not be expressed merely through color.
Meena Park, born in 1973, earned her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA from Hunter College, City University of New York. She has had solo exhibitions at Kukje Gallery, Seoul (2013, 2010); Doosan Gallery, Seoul (2012); Gallery Em, Seoul (2011); and Project Space Sarubia, Seoul (2007). She has also participated in numerous group shows, including those held at Savina Museum, Seoul (2015); National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon (2014); PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2014); Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Ansan, Korea (2013); and Culture Station Seoul 284 (2012, 2011). Her work is in the collection of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Gyeonggi-do, Korea; and Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul. In 2010, she was the recipient of a Doosan Artist Award for Fine Art.
